ROTC....where do I begin as a homeschooler

[Genesis Academy]

Where does a homeschooler begin with ROTC? This might be our backup plan for paying for college if my son isn't accepted at the Naval Academy. He wants to join the Marines, but .....is this branch part of the ROTC?

Any help is greately appreciated,

Lisa
buettnerpl@alltel.net

[coopers5]

I would think you'd want to have a few colleges in mind that are second, third, etc. choices for your son. Then you see if they offer ROTC programs at their school.

For instance, my son is at Cedarville University in Ohio - a Christian institution that also has Army and Air Force ROTC programs. When he began to feel strongly that he wanted to attend Cedarville (largely because of the Christian atmosphere and the debate team, as well as strong academics) we looked into ROTC scholarships. We were offered debate money and some academic money, but two years ago the scholarships were weaker there than they are now. At any rate, my son had been in Civil Air Patrol for his high school years, and the idea of the Air Force did appeal to him.

We looked up all the information online at the Air Force website - I can't remember now if there's a separate ROTC website - and applied. I think they have a deadline like Dec. or Jan of the senior year for the next year entering freshmen. Anyway, we were very thankful, after several hoops to jump through - paperwork, interview, medical exams - that he was offered the highest tier for his field of study (he's non-technical; technical majors such as sciences, pre-med, engineering can obtain even more - my son got 3 years covered, rather than 4 - but could have chosen a state school and gotten 4 covered - his first year, the other institutional scholarships made up a good deal of his cost, but we did pay for part of that first year). He's going to school for free now, and even getting a paycheck ;). I have heard that people can get into the scholarship program after they've gone through a year of ROTC, too, at college. Not all make it in before entering as freshmen.
Does this help? We had to submit a nice resume, transcript, test scores, all the usual things. Oh, and he did have to participate in the AF ROTC program that freshman year, even though funds were not provided until the following year.

Let me know if I can answer any other specific questions.

Jo